Name That Race Car (Santa Edition)

"StingrayJake" (stingrayjake) 11/09/2015 at 11:59 • Filed to: Mercedes

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Doing some research for work and started watching this old Mercedes Benz Winter Event !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . This open-wheel race car in Santa’s garage caught my eye.

I did a little of my own research seeing as I wasn’t initially sure what the car’s background was, especially considering the brand attached to it. I now have a pretty good idea what series and year it’s from, but I thought I’d post it here anyway just for fun.

Perhaps somebody who’s followed open-wheel racing more than I have can shine some light on it. Soooo... NAME THAT RACE CAR!

That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms > StingrayJake 11/09/2015 at 12:03

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Looks like a Penske Indy car on my small screen here. There was a story about the Penske Ilmor-Mercedes Indy cars on here a while ago.

StingrayJake > That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms 11/09/2015 at 12:21

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Yep. I actually didn’t know Mercedes ran in Indy in the 90s so I initially thought it was an F1 car but the roll hoop and the front wing are definitely Indy style.

Did Ilmore-Mercedes supply anybody else during that time or was it just Penske? Obviously Penske had lots of success with that partnership. I know IndyCar is built to manage costs, but it’d be cool to see more engine suppliers in there.

Thomas Donohue > StingrayJake 11/09/2015 at 12:54

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With that roll hoop, looks like an Indycar from the 90’s....or possibly a Formula 3 car from the same era, though I don’t think Mercedes supplied F3 engines back then..

bmil128 > StingrayJake 11/09/2015 at 14:40

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Ilmor built Mercedes were used by several CART teams from 1995 to 1999 or 2000 when Mercedes shifted their focus solely to F1. I thought when this commercial originally aired that the front wings were dihedral and this was a Reynard, but in this still it looks more like they are flat and it is a Lola.

tromoly > StingrayJake 11/09/2015 at 14:43

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Penske PC-23 chassis mated to the Mercede-Benz 500l engine.

That Bastard Kurtis - An Attempt to Standardize My Username Across Platforms > StingrayJake 11/09/2015 at 15:00

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Apparently they did at least the following year. I know Penske was the only team that got the 265E engine...a turbo pushrod V8 built to get around some regulations and developed specifically to compete in the Indy 500. I guess after the race they cracked down on it and made it uncompetitive, and was one of the main things that led to the CART/IRL split. In my opinion, the wrong series survived...CART was the best.